European Air Transport Command: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 13:00, 25 July 2010
The European Air Transport Command (EATC) is a multinational command center located in Eindhoven (Netherlands). It coordinates air transport for French, Dutch, Belgian and German air combat troops - these countries are also members of the European Air Group.
The predecessor of the EATC is the European Airlift Co-ordination Cell (EACC) of the European Air Group founded in September 2001 in Eindhoven. It was extended in July 2004 and renamed to the European Airlift Centre (EAC) of the European Air Group. On 25. February 2010 the ministers of defense of France, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany decided to put the centre under a separate strategic command - the existing EAC(C) Euroepan Airlift Centre Command is restructured and renamed to European Air Transport Command (EATC) on 1. July 2010. The new staff is supposed to reach its assigned size of 160 in September 2010. Spain and Luxembourg have shown interest to join the EATC staff.
The EACC / EATC will take over the operational control of all military cargo aircraft (exluding helicopters) especially the existing fleet of Transall C-160 and C-130 Hercules. In the future all Airbus A400M will be put under the command of the EATC (beginning 2012). A strong motivation for the creation of a multinational transport group was the lack of resources for air transport - the A400M is considerably delayed while the inclusion of European troops in combat missions has increased over the years including many overseas missions.
Germany reorganizes its Lufttransportkommando (LTKdo) in Münster - the aircraft personal will be assigned back to the Luftwaffendivision air combat groups and the LTKdo command center itself will be retired on 31. December 2010. A group of 65 officers of the LTKdo will be moved to the EATC European Air Transport Command.